It's so good to be home!!

The past week and a half has been such a blur! First, I left with my major professor and fellow grad students for six days in south Mississippi at the International Plant Propagators Society meeting (doesn't that make me sound smart/important?!?). We had lots of fun touring nurseries in southwest Alabama, south Mississippi, and southeast Louisiana. I was really able to connect with a lot of people in the industry, and was able to catch up with some old friends. Cheryl is now a professor at Kansas State, but that didn't stop us from having some crazy fun at one of the more "challenged" nurseries we went to!

Yes, she is actually STANDING on flats of plants. IT WAS CRAZY!!!!!
After returning last Wednesday morning, I picked up a rental van from Enterprise, and set out Thursday morning along with two other graduate students and fifteen undergraduate students for Louisville, KY. We stopped on the way up at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville to let all of the students have some time to look around the garden conservatory. I had seen it before, but so much had been updated!

Once in Louisville, we all attended the Green Industry Conference where there were tons of exhibitors showing off all of their equipment and products. There was even a fifteen acre area out back where all of the power equipment companies would let you test their stuff! It was awesome!

We all got back to Auburn Saturday night, with only 1,048 miles logged!!

Then, Sunday morning, a couple of my friends and I got up and drove to Dothan to experience the Peanut Festival!! Brian had been before, but Jack and Taylor never had, so it was well worth it. We visited with the fam for a while, and then headed down to the festival to walk around for a while before going to the Lady Antebellum concert. Before it started, we were able to go backstage and meet them, and do you know what they told us when we told them we had just come down from Auburn? They told us, "War Eagle!"
It was definitely a meeting worth remembering!!

So, while I've had some amazing times this past week and a half, I'm also VERY grateful to be home for a while. The laundry pile is overwhelming, and everything in this house needs to be dusted very badly. But I'll get to it eventually!! Right now, I'm just gonna go be irresponsible and read a book. Hey, you have to start out doing something you know you can finish....right?!?